Shall we Reassess?

A little over a month ago I took a look at Syracuse's NCAA Tournament resume and came to an optimistic conclusion that Syracuse had a pretty good chance at making the NCAA Tournament even though they were playing mediocre basketball.

After Syracuse's devastating collapse to Pittsburgh today the Orange have loss three in a row, their RPI tomorrow will be somewhere around 60 and they have just 17 wins and a 7-9 record in the Big East with only one signature win, which seems like months ago against Georgetown.

The only way they make the tournament is if they win out the rest of the regular season (at Seton Hall, and home against Marquette) and win one game in the Big East Tournament (likely against West Virginia or Pittsburgh). That would give them 20 wins, a .500 conference record, three wins vs. the top 50, and a top ten Strength of Schedule. They could be a surprise in a la Stanford last year.

That's probably not going to happen as this was Syracuse's best performance of the year for 36 and a half minutes. It's hard to see a young team coming back and salvaging this season.

While Don'te Green's European style game (good length, outside shot, no toughness) had NBA Draftniks putting him in the lottery as recently as last month, that talk has seemed to cool down and I think a "Don'te Leave" T-Shirt and a good talk with Jim Boeheim (hint: It would start with "Carmelo Anthony was a friend of mine...") should return him to a team that could be loaded next year.

Actually they will be loaded, they will just have to overcome the tendency to disappoint that Syracuse has come to exemplify over the past five years.